Love Speaks from the Cross:

Love’s Completion

Love Speaks from the Cross:Love’s Completion

Introduction Few men ever die with everything finished. When we die,

most, if not all of us, will still have an unfinished “to do” list. The composer Schubert died at the age of 31 and left as a sort of parable of human life his “Unfinished Symphony”.

Jesus did God’s work in man’s time frame. Speaking of the limitations that he shared with mankind He said, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” (Jn 9:4) BY the time that Jesus was 33 years old he had done all that He set out to do. As death came over Him, He could cry, “Tetelestai” or “It is finished”. Love saw Jesus to the finish. Love kept Jesus on the cross until His death to finish several things:

Love Speaks from the Cross:Love’s Completion

• His battle with Satan- Satan was behind the cross- “bruising His heel” (Gen 3:15). The devil used Judas (Jn 13:2, 27). At the Cross it was the hour of the power of darkness (Lk 22:52-53). The forces of evil waged one last battle, putting Jesus and His love to the ultimate test (Jn 15:13).

“Now in the hours of His passion, evil had been making its final assaults. Sin took iron and made spikes of it. Sin took a spray of roses and made a crown of thorns. Sin took the tall tree from the woods and made of it a cross. But still Jesus was steadfast, His spirit unconquered, his faith unbroken.

Below Him in His physical weakness, the voice of evil had uttered its last persuasions. ‘If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross”- come down to the ordinary levels of human compromise; accept the fellowship of lesser minds, the safety of lower ideals. But what must be our comment? They may have believed in Him for a while had He come down. But the centuries have believed in Him because He stayed up, because He went on to the finish”. Love Speaks from the Cross, pp. 53-54.

Love Speaks from the Cross:Love’s Completion

• His obedience to God- Jn 12:27-28: Jesus’ prayer- save Me from this hour- but it was this hour that summed up His purpose for leaving heaven and coming down to earth. It was time for Him to glorify God by the fulfillment of His mission. Heb 5:7-9 His cries were heard as the Father left Him on the cross to learn obedience by the things which He suffered- that He could become the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him; for the joy set before Him (Heb 12:2-3)- the joy of obeying His Father- the joy of glorifying His Father- the joy of returning to His Father- the joy of completing His mission to save sinners- He endured and finished. The fact that He finished is given as inspiration for us to do the same that we, too, might receive the reward of heaven.

Love Speaks from the Cross:Love’s Completion

• The law of Moses- the decrees against man and hostile to him- which had indebted man with a debt that he could not pay- Jesus took out of the way, nailing them to the cross- Col 2:13-14

• The sacrificial system of Moses- Heb 10:1-12. Futility ended; remission of sins became a reality!

• The promise to Abraham- the promise had been kept, first to the Jew, then to the Gentile- all blessed

• to be children of Abraham, heirs according to promise Gen 12:3; Acts 3:25-26; Gal 3:26-29

• God’s eternal purpose- Eph 1:3-11 God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world- holy, blameless through forgiveness, adopted into His family and therefore be heirs of heaven

Love Speaks from the Cross:Love’s Completion

It is Finished

Satan tempted Jesus sore, On the cross more than before;But the Tempter He ignored! Hallelujah! “It is finished!”

Jesus came to do God’s will, All His righteousness fulfill;On the cross obedient still! Hallelujah! “It is finished!”

Moses’ law men had not met, Their sins God could not forget,Jesus died and paid the debt! Hallelujah! “It is finished!”

Gifts and off’-rings man did bring, Year by year for the same thing;From the cross redemption rings! Hallelujah! “It is finished!”

Seed of Abram God did say Would bless man one glorious day,Jesus’ death was His great way! Hallelujah! “It is finished!”

Now the mystery revealed, from eternity concealed,By His stripes we can be healed! Hallelujah! “It is finished!”

Love Speaks from the Cross:Love’s Completion

• Exhortation to the Christian: Heb 12-1:3 Finish as Jesus did!

• Invitation to sinner to obey and receive forgiveness: “As the spokes of a wheel center in the hub, so has it seemed to the Christian experience

that all our deepest thoughts center in the cross. It awakens us to penitence. It reveals to us the nature of sin. There dawns upon us the wonder of vicarious sacrifice, and we are moved to respond, to seek forgiveness, and to walk in newness of life. Here our dangerous talk of human merit is silenced. We witness something higher than man’s way. We are in the presence of an act of God, a finished work.” – Love Speaks from the Cross, p. 54-55.

“Hubert Simpson tells of a picture painted for the Royal Corps of Signallers. It shows a signaler unarmed sent out into no man’s land to repair a cable snapped by shellfire, sent out to restore the broken contact. The picture shows him dead in fulfillment of his task, but in either hand he holds a fragment of cable, even I death holding them together, the living current passing through his dead frame.

That is a vivid illustration of what Jesus did for man by His death. Sin had severed the living contact between God and man. The fellowship was broken, the contact interrupted. Alone in no man’s land, with no weapon save His love, Christ brought the two ends together.” - Love Speaks from the Cross, p. 55-56

Won’t you meet the conditions of forgiveness? Rom 10:9-10; Acts 2:38.